ID4Africa panel outlines steady KYC process, policy improvement

eKYC is an adaptation of long-standing, even ancient practice in banking for the modern world. But many countries are or risk getting stuck half-way through digitalization. Barry Cooper, technical director of Cenfri, said in his opening remarks in one of three parallel tracks on day 3 of ID4Africa’s 2026 AGM that “the digital value chain is very short and very expensive” in these systems. They are missing out on the benefit of ID verification becoming the standard way to interact with the financial system. Cooper moderated the opening presentations of the “Digital ID and Finance” track.

Another, even more common problem for financial systems is what Cooper refers to as “compliance culture,” in which the 96 percent or more of transactions which are low-risk are treated too similarly to the 3 or 4 percent that carry medium risk, and even the fraction of a percent of transactions that are actually high-risk.

The scrutiny makes services unaffordable or otherwise unobtainable for poor people, while providing a veneer of protection from money laundering, terrorism financing, or other crimes that go along with, as Cooper says in reference to historical practice, “banking a pirate.”

Ghana

Eunice Amewu Nyadu, CFO of Ghana’s GhIPSS (Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System), a subsidiary of the country’s central bank. GhIPSS operates payment infrastructure across the mobile money and banking sectors.

Nyadu outlined Ghana’s challenges with quickly clearing cheques, and how they have been addressed by using digital images of the physical documents.

System set up to encourage participation with measures like vouching, that have enabled GhIPSS to clear $4.5 billion in mobile money alone.

Ghana’s central bank is continuing to pursue full digitalization, moving at the pace at which the country’s daily reality justifies investments.

Lesotho

Mothetsi Sekoati, director of payments and settlements for the Central Bank of Lesotho explained that his country did away with cheques in 2019.

Prior to the introduction of Lesotho’s national identity cards, a wide range of identity verification methods were used, including knowledge-based verification relying on knowledge of the name of the local chief’s daughter.

A recent review of Lesotho’s KYC rules led to changes to allow older people to identify themselves as pensioners to complete ID verification with only their national ID. The small transactions they typically make do not carry enough risk to justify making their participation in the banking sector any more difficult.

The barrier to full digital KYC adoption in Lesotho at this point is the prevalence of feature phones among the rural population, Sekoati explained.

Zambia

Dr. Greg Chola Nsofu, director of ICT for the Bank of Zambia told the room of over 100 attendees the country’s National Registration Card is easy to counterfeit, resulting in a wave of fraud that cause Zambia an economic “headache.” Fraud costs over five dollars out of $100 invested, making access to investment expensive.

The situation has also made obtaining loans difficult, as banks are forced to interrogate the identity and trustworthiness of the individual at length to avoid falling victim to fraud.

In response, Zambia is developing a centralized eKYC platform that makes use of the digital IDs issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, through an API connection and a fingerprint biometrics check. As the project is carried out, a parallel program considers alternatives, so a migration in the future of possible.

The arrival of neobanks in the country has prompted Home Affairs to consider adding face biometrics to its database to enable remote ID verification and authentication, Nsofu noted.

Home Affairs charges around 80 cents per successful API call from the banks, creating a robust revenue stream as the system scales.

South Africa

Gerhard Cronje, digital identity owner with the South African Reserve Bank, made the case for thinking about credentials for KYC as an ecosystem as it seeks to enable instant payments without opening the door to instant fraud.

A hybrid of centralized and decentralized digital identities can provide that ecosystem, he argues, noting the potential value of proof of attributes like mobile number and proof of address in KYC.

Cronje emphasized the many important considerations for succeeding with such a hybrid approach.

He concluded by urging his audience to consider the value of transferable trust.

Article Topics

Africa  |  financial services  |  ID4Africa  |  ID4Africa 2026  |  KYC